Three people were found dead inside a luxury Edgewater, New Jersey high-rise apartment building in what authorities said late Friday appeared to be a murder-suicide.

Authorities in Bergen Countysaid investigators believe a manshot and killed his wife and daughter. Police discovered the bodies on Christmas after the family, identified asMichael Stasko, 53, his wife, Melissa, 49, and their daughter, Nellie, 8, failed to show up at a family gathering in Missouri.

The motive was not known.

"We don't know whether it was financial, we don't know whether it was familial," Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said at a news conference late on Friday.